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Thursday, November 3, 2016

Vietnam Airlines Singapore to Hanoi Airbus A321 Flight Review

Flew Vietnam Airlines from Singapore to Hanoi and back, for a quick getaway with the family. As the tickets came in under $1,000 for the four of us, we thought this was a reasonable price to pay for 3-hour flight each way. Anyway, we hadn't been to Hanoi and we wanted to stay at the JW Marriott there (can't really afford JW Marriot elsewhere), so why not.

Turned out that the flight was pretty good. Here is the flight review video.

Let me go through a few notable points. Vietnam Airlines operates the Airbus A321 on the Singapore-Hanoi route. This version of plane has 4 rows of Business class seats, followed by Economy class seats in a 3-3 configuration. The Airbus A321 is a single aisle aircraft, commonly used for short haul, regional flights. This video footage shows the Vietnam Airlines Airbus A321 landing at Changi Airport. This was the same plane that we would be taking to Hanoi.

Seats
The pitch was surprisingly good. There was plenty of legroom, which puts many of the Boeing 787 Economy seats to shame (notably Qatar's 787). Very comfortable, and they even had a leg-rest.

Food and Service
Very enjoyable. We had a full meal service, no less than what you would get on a long-haul flight in Economy. The stewardesses went around serving additional wine, coffee and tea. I can see that Vietnam Airlines is trying hard to up their service.

This was the Fish with Rice. My wife had the Beef with rice, you can see that in the video. The bun was hot and nice. The fresh fruit platter was awesome!

Entertainment
Unfortunately, the plane was not fitted with a personal In-flight entertainment system. There were overhead screens that you could watch. But since this is an Airbus A321 operating on short-haul routes, personal IFEs would not be common.

Would I fly Vietnam Airlines again? Yes. The price is attractive and the service on board was good. This was our first time, and probably not the last time.

Before I end, here are some other videos I made from video footage taken at Singapore Changi Airport. Good footage on this EVA Air Hello Kitty Boeing 777. This must be one of the cutest airplanes in service today!